In the Beatles song "Revolution" John Lennon wrestles with the idea of revolution as a manner of social change. At first, he seems in favor of such sudden, disruptive change. "You say you want a revolution; Well, you know; We all want to change the world." But even the casual listener will notice that he tempers the sentiment throughout the song with lines such as "But when you talk about destruction; Don't you know that you can count me out." As a sign of his internal struggle over the question, at one point in the song, he sings, "count me out/in," perhaps signaling that he is having a hard time deciding.
Today, at all levels of our education system, some people are wrestling with similar questions about an education revolution, sudden drastic, wholesale change that would abandon much if not all of the system that once was undisputed as best in the world. This as an alternative to evolution, which has connotations of slow, gradual and perhaps even accidental change. I suggest that the choice is not between only two options, revolution and evolution. Instead, there is a third option, reform.
To me, the word reform signals a balance between the key elements of revolution and evolution. It has an element of urgency and substantive, deliberate change that is associated with revolution. But it lacks the abruptness of revolutionary change in favor of a more orderly adaptation that is usually associated with evolution. In China, from 1966 to 1976, Mao Zedong led the Cultural Revolution during which books were burned, thought was stifled and dissidents were jailed. Change resulted to be sure, but the cost on so many levels was extremely high. Today, China is also changing rapidly and profoundly, but not through revolution. China's current economic reform has been built on increasing openness to foreign investment and privatization of some, but not all, business. It is more than evolution but not as drastic as revolution.
The orderliness of the profound changes that come from reform appeal more to me than the alternatives associated with evolution and revolution. This is especially true when it comes to my chosen field, education. In my view, one of the best ways to bring about reform is to engage stakeholders. For education reform, these stakeholders include those who are on campus: students, faculty and staff. But there are many off-campus stakeholders, too: chambers of commerce, economic development agencies, leaders from other education sectors, employers and government officials, to name a few.
By engaging these stakeholders in a collaborative partnership, in which thorough and objective analysis of data is the basis of discussion, we provide a vehicle for the stakeholders to work together and drive the reform for the common good. This is the premise of The Collaborative Advantage by Dennis McGrath, Richard Donovan, Barbara Schaier-Peleg and William Van Buskirk. It is also the premise that underlies a group that is taking shape here at Clinton Community College, that is our Workforce Development Roundtable.
The Workforce Development Roundtable was an idea born from Clinton Community College's Community Business Summit in March 2010. There, business leaders participated in a forum to discuss the role that CCC could play in our community. From those seeds it became clear that as "The Community's College," it was incumbent upon CCC to step into the role of convener on matters such as this. And so we did.
Since September 2010, a group of community leaders has been meeting more or less on a monthly basis to see how together we can foster positive change in our regional education pipeline, and ultimately give our community a competitive advantage. Don't expect a revolution, but do expect that we are intent on something much more deliberate than evolution. If we do our work well, we can quote John Lennon one more time: "Don't you know it's gonna be all right."
That's what I think. Please tell me what you think by sending an e-mail to presidentsblog@clinton.edu.
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